QuiltBlog

What a beautiful Easter Weekend! 

I am so thankful for this beautiful world we live in and for the inspiration i gives us.  We have several trees in our yard in full coloful bloom and it just warms my heart to see nature prepare for this beautiful season.

As you know, I also embroider and bought a wonderful new machine.  It's a 10 needle and we are having so much fun.  What more could you ask for than picking out some beautiful designs, getting your embroidery started and then quilting while you are embroidering. 

I have my granddaughters Princess quilt on and the blooming flowers has inspired me on some of my designs.  Of course I just watched one of Linda's Season 4 videos too and am so excited to use that Peacock Feather!

Speaking of Peacock's, that is what I completed embroidering!   It was 10 colors, so no changing of the thread.  It took 90 minutes to embroider.

We hope you too, will share with us what projects you have going!  What inspires you?

After dealing with a long battle of whip lash and neck problems, it has gotten in my way of quilting. I am getting there but it has truly "whipped me down."  But I refuse to stay there.

Today I needed some inspiration to finish a customer quilt.  It's such a cute one and is done with with bright applique flowers in bright colors and lots of wide open white spaces, just for me!  I was able to use a coordinating thread by YLI which is called Confetti in the fluorescents.  This thread is variegated in very short repeats.  It is turning out so cute.

Then back to the inspiration . . .Do you ever just go blank and need a design?  Then you just have to  go the thequiltingschool.com and pick a video.  I went to Linda Taylor.  Her newest videos are her Season 4 of Linda's Longarm Quilting.  You have got to check out her peacock feather she used in the newest episode with Pat Barry.  I am sure you all know that Linda demonstrates her quilting in each episode and this feather is beautiful!

If you are not a member of thequiltingschool.com you are really missing out.  We all have blocks and need inspiration but we can't just run to a class to get it.  Or can we?  You bet you can and for a very reasonable price you can be inspired any time, any where you want!  What a great deal to be able to learn anything I need to and see it as many times as I need to in the comfort of my home.

I know this is my job but I truly believe that being able to learn all we can about our machines, is extrememly important.  So check it out and be inspired and get quick fixes to those blocks!

I have been dealing with whip lash which has been quite a trial with horrific headaches.  Every day I have headaches, it's just how bad they will be.  I even ended up in the emergency room one evening it was so bad.  I have been going to therapy for a month and I am finally getting some relief.

 Of course, this has affected being able to quilt.  I am sure you all have had some kind of trial that has interfered with your quilting and know just what I am talking about.  I felt I was mourning because I had such a fun customer quilt to do but couldn't  get up there to quilt.

 Of all the things I enjoy doing, longarm quilting is my favorite!  As I quilt I refer to all that I have been taught and am grateful for Linda Taylor who has been my mentor for so many years.  How blessed I am to work with her and have her as my sister in law!

I always set the quilt out where I can see it so it can "talk to me".  By the time I start I know just what I am going to do.  The one I am working on now has applique' and as I was stabilizing it talked up a storm.  It has florescent colors and I had a YLI variegated thread that was just perfect.  My customer is so awesome as she tells me to do whatever I feel like.  She always pays for freehand quilting which of course is my favorite.

I am so thankful for some good days now so I can quilt and I know I will continue to improve.  Keeping a positive attitude is so important!

When I first started embroidering I knew nothing.  What was there to learn?  My wonderful machine threaded itself, let me know when my bobbin was almost out, if the thread broke I could go back to where that was and start again.  All I had to do was push buttons!  I was so excited I couldn't wait to start my first project! 

So I picked a beautiful flower design, some light weight fabric and some light tear away stabilizer.  Choosing all the thread colors was time consuming (I think there were like 26) but fun.  Hooping took a little bit of practice and I was off!  The design had quite a bit of satin stitching and as I advanced through the colors I noted that the satin stitch was not tight like it should be.  Now what?  My first thought was the tension, of course.  I read my manual and I had automatic tension.  Now what?  It must be wrong so I fiddled around with the tension but to no avail. 

Of course, my favorite tool is Google.  You can find anything on Google, including information about yourself.  So I Googled and Googled but couldn't quite find the specifics of what I needed.  I was frustrated. I know you know the feeling.  So I picked another design and didn't want to pick out 26 colors or have it embroider for 60 minutes, so I picked a simpler design. I was off and it turned out beautifully.

Does anyone know what my problem was?  I did not learn it for probably  a year.  The stabilizer and light weight fabric were wrong. My favorite site for designs is emblibrary.com.  I started searching on their site and found a place about stabilizer.  There it was.  There was a hint exacrly for my problem. Heavy stitching, and satin stitching is pretty heavy, needs heavier stabilizer.  It needs to be cutaway as the tear away is too hard on the stitches.   They specifically addressed the satin stitching problem.  Also my fabric was probably too light for the heavy design I picked.

So using the correct stabilizer is very important.  There are many sites that address how to use stabilizers.  I was a beginner and half the time I didn't even know what they were addressing as everyone has their favortie brand.  We bought our stabilizer through brewersewing.com and one of my co-workers gave me a link that was perfect.  It was a sample pack from OESD with instructions of how to use them.  That was a glorious day as not only did I have the explanation but I could see and feel the stabilizer and know what they were addressing.

The right stabilizer is an important thing to learn.  I love using Sulky's Dissovable and making lace book marks, ornaments etc.  Did you know that most dissolvable stabilizer is made from the jelly fish on the beach?  I learned that at an aquarium.  Once they are on the beach they will die so they use them.

I always like to just get into my projects.  I don't want to spend time learning all about it.  How many of you are like that?

Stitching in the ditch is a must for your quilts to lay and hang nice and flat.  My first big experience with SID was when Linda called me to come help her with her quilts for Season 3 of her TV show.  I agreed, got off the phone and thought "What would she have me do on her quilts?".  Then I was sure it was loading them, assisting her with what ever she needed.

When I got to the lodge she said we had 16 quilts we had to get done.  That is a lot of quilts and we knew it couldn't happen without the Statler.  We were both fairly new to the Statler back then and I didn't own one, but felt secure enough to place patterns.  Linda had the quilts all picked out and we discussed what pattern we would do on the first quilt and then of course, Linda would freehand.

Then she said you can stitch in the ditch and get the next quilt all stabilized while I am free handing.  "We have to get 3 quilts a day done to get through these quilts.  I started to panic!  I of course, stitched in the ditch on all my custom quilts, but that was in my home, in my studio and no one was there.  Especially not Linda.  I really panicked!  These were going to be on TV!

Linda went upstairs and I literally started hyperventilating.  The machines are in the bottom floor of the lodge and it was February.  That means lots of snow.  I opened the double door and went outside and started praying.  OK, there were a few tears of terror. Then I thought "Well Linda wouldn't have asked me unless she had confidence in me."  I calmed down and turned to go back in.  The door was locked from the inside!  I couldn't walk around as I had no coat or boots on and there was about 3 feet of snow.  So I started knocking.  Keep in mind this lodge is huge, 9000 square feet and well insulated.

Pretty soon I was pounding as it was very cold.  Linda came down opened the door and wanted to know just what I was doing outside with no coat!  Then I looked at her and told her I was praying as I was scared to death.  She retorted, it was just SID to which I replied "On TV Show quilts!

Just as she is in class, she told me I would be fine or she wouldn't have asked me to come and help if she didn't know I could do it.  So I chose a baby quilt because of course, it was the smallest.  It was octagons!  For custom quilting that means you go around every one of them.  I learned the easiest way to look at it as continuous lines.  Linda is so good at that. 

When I finished Linda said just go ahead and quilt it.  I almost passed out.  I said "No way, am I going to quilt on a Linda Taylor TV Show quilt!"  See Linda truly believes if she can do it we can do it.  She told me I had been in all her classes many times, quilted for customers and she had seen my quilting, so she was perfectly comfortable.  I put my foot down and said there was no way.

I stabilized the quilts placed Statler patterns and she free handed.  It was such a great experience.  I became proficient and very comfortable with SID by the end of that week.  It was so fun quilting with Linda and being taught one on one from such an extraordinary quilter.

All those quilts hang beautifully and I learned you sometimes get out the ditch, just stop and get back in and don't you dare pick out what you don't think looks right!  So remember that SID is a basic to great quilting and "you can do it!"  You also will learn to like it and know that it's ust part of quilting.  So don't forget to SID!